Harvest Moon. Sharon Struth

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ The old way works fine for me. So it’s not sexting?”

      “No, it’s not. It’s e-mail, which you can find on your computer. You text on a cell phone.”

      “Ahhhh…” Emily thought for a second. “Well, I may be challenged, but talking to someone on the computer isn’t real.” She leaned close, lowered her voice. “Do you ever talk about dirty stuff?”

      “No! Maybe I should be glad you’ve chosen to stay in the dark with these devices. Our conversations are about life and music, books. Things we like and don’t like.”

      Emily scrunched her brows together. “Wait. How does a man simply show up in your inbox?”

      “He didn’t. One day I happened to stumble on his blog.”

      “His blog?” She opened her eyes wide and her jaw unhinged. “Okay, that right there sounds dirty.”

      “A blog is a webpage on the Internet. Where you write regularly about topics and readers can leave comments about what you’ve written. He writes about music. His blog is called ‘Eclectic Expressions in Music.’”

      “Music? And you found him how?”

      “I was searching on the Internet one day for some music info for my chorus director and stumbled on the blog. I signed up and started to read his posts regularly, even left comments sometimes. He’d respond to them. Then one day he wanted my opinion on a song he wrote so we exchanged e-mail addresses.”

      “Why not just hand him your house key, too?”

      “It’s not like that at all. We decided to keep our personal lives private, so we didn’t exchange our real names or other details. I gave him an e-mail address I use for anything not personal, like signing up for newsletters and what not. He had a blog e-mail address.”

      Emily made a throaty sound of displeasure. “I don’t approve of these computer meeting things.”

      “When did you become such a judgmental worrywart?”

      “When my kids asked for Facebook accounts.” She lifted the wine glass. “The Internet is creepy.”

      “Don’t you see commercials for online dating sites? People can meet that way.”

      “But they’re usually predators on Dateline.” She paused, the glass inches from her lips. “Thank God Jack the Ripper isn’t alive today. You’d probably be his first victim.”

      “He was British. There’s a whole ocean keeping me safe.”

      “You know what I mean. Don’t you want to meet a real man? And by ‘real’”—Emily made air quotes with her hands—“I mean one with flesh and bones, not the Brawny paper towel guy. There’s a new sales rep at Walt’s office. He’s in his early forties, recently divorced, loves to kayak and hike—like you. Oh, and Walt says he’s pretty nice looking.”

      “Oh well, if he’s Walt’s type then—”

      “You know what I mean.”

      “I’m fine. I don’t need a fix up.”

      “No, but maybe you’re still caught up in the past. It’s been a long time since you and Marc split up and…”

      The breakup with Marc after dating for almost two years had been the reason her family believed she’d returned from graduate school “not herself.” Words they’d used on her more times than Veronica could count.

      Emily reached out, rested her hand on Veronica’s forearm. “Don’t you think it’s time to let go of the hurt?”

      Yes, sometimes she did. But what she needed to let go of wasn’t about Marc. Three weeks after the breakup, when she chose to leave a party with Gary, the axis of her world had spun out of control.

      Her twenty-year-old secret. Now might be a perfect time to set the record straight and tell someone the truth about Gary, a man she had met at a campus party, who’d walked her home and raped her.

      The same pyramid of emotions always present when the word crept into her head toiled inside her, a mixture of rage, remorse, fear, and shame. Veronica worked hard to hide it from Emily.

      Her sister removed her hand, leaned back, and folded her arms. “Ronnie, I don’t want you to wake up one day and wonder why you passed up so many chances in life.”

      Too late. Veronica looked past her sister and stared at the blue striped kitchen wallpaper, a pattern reminding her of the prison she’d locked herself in for twenty years. Only lately, thanks to the conversations with Ry, did she recall how she used to sometimes feel around a man she really liked a lot. The way her first love, Marc, had made her feel. The way she’d first felt when she met Gary, although the idea he could solicit the sensation now made her nauseous.

      Veronica swallowed her pain and met her sister’s gaze. “I’m fine, Em. And I don’t like blind dates.”

      Emily offered a sad, closed-lip smile. “Okay, hon.”

      No, she definitely wouldn’t tell Emily about the rape because she’d tell their mother. Then they’d ask questions, probe for details. Maybe even discuss the incident behind her back, albeit with good intentions. Then her mother would insist they shove her pain under a rug, like Mom did with most things capable of making others talk. Neither of them would understand the scars of shame Veronica wore after the attack, or how she had worried the campus authorities or other students might call her a liar. The same way they had when another girl was raped on campus the year before, making Veronica stay silent not only to the university, but to the police as well.

      The front door opened and snapped her from the horrible past. Boomer barked and scrambled up the steps behind Emily’s husband.

      Walt walked into the kitchen, a tie hanging loose around the opened neck of his dress shirt and his reddish-blond hair curling around his ears. “Smells good. What’s cookin’ good lookin’?” He leaned over and kissed Emily.

      “Your favorite. Pasta.”

      He pecked Veronica on the cheek. “Good to see you, Ronnie. And of course it’s always good to see my best buddy.” He turned to Boomer and leaned over to rub his neck with both hands. Walt muttered strange little cooing sounds, so unlike him. Boomer’s swishing tail suggested he enjoyed the small talk.

      Walt stood upright. “Can I change before we eat?”

      “Yup. It’ll be out when you get down.”

      He walked off. The happy family image Veronica had forfeited many years back, along with notions of romantic love, remained embedded in her mind. If only Marc hadn’t ended things… If only she’d never met Gary….

      Veronica forced a smile. “Walt loves dogs. You guys should get one.”

      Emily shared a long list of reasons why she wasn’t ready for one yet, but Veronica only half listened. Lately, more than ever before, a part of her wished to shed scars from the horror she’d been through in grad school. The problem was she had no clue how to start.

      * СКАЧАТЬ